


There Are Lots Of Right Ways For A Girl To Be Or Have A Writhing Mass Of Tentacles

by Slant



Series: Not really a wrestling au [2]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: References to Carl Sagan, Sign Language, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-09-12 09:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: It is important to have a wide range of potential role models.





	1. Perfuma

**Author's Note:**

> I am utterly impressed by the number of characters who had or were tentacles. I mean if it was just Entraptra and her hair tendrils or just Perfuma and her vines that would be one thing, but we got both of them and Octavia and the unnamed tentacle creature in Adora and Catra's barracks, too.

"I'm so worried," said Perfuma. "When I fight I feel so exhilarated. alive. Embodied. But it's nothing like I've ever done before. I'd never thought of anything like that, not before She-Ra came among us and showed us that violence could be the answer."  
"And the world is truly so very peaceful, with the delicate flowers and the strong patient growth of the trees. Engulfing a dude in a monstrous dendrotic mass during a vine-rush and then cracking him out of the shell of his armour with tendrils seems contrary to the way of things. The act of someone out of balance with nature and with themselves."


	2. Entraptra and Prefuma

"Being starstuff is untrue and a bit dull," said Entraptra, quickly "If you look at the stoichiometry of a human- and that is the least interesting aspect of a human - then we're like 80 per cent water of which 2 out of 3 atoms are hydrogen. And hydrogen is primordial. If it had taken part in steller nucleosynthasis it'd be helium."  
"How can you think being a part of creation is boring? Isn't our oneness with the Universe awesome? Isn't seeing yourself as a part of the immensity of the cosmos glorious?"  
"But of course I'm part of the cosmos. There is nothing else. That's what 'being' and `cosmos` mean. But being ten per cent carbon-12 or whatever is nothing like as exciting as how I fit together. My robots are more interesting than a pile of screws and gears and circuits, and that goes double for you. I don't know how to make a you."  
Perfuma blinked. She'd gone looking for science-things so she'd have something to talk to Entraptra about, and not only had they been rejected, but Entraptra apparently thought that people were better than astronomy.  
"I thought you liked astronomy better than people."  
"Yes. I don't cope well with people. They're strange and present and unpredictable and that makes me nervous. The stars are far away and predictable. I cope better with people if I'm observing it from inside the walls or a long way away."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The complete Carl Sagan quote is "Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff.", but Perfuma, like pretty much everyone else (including me) has forgotten the first 90%.


	3. Asinath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asinath is what I've chosen to call the tentacle-creature we see in Adora and Catra's barracks. I assume that she has no vocal organs, so in this story, she uses sign language.

_"Seek not to prevent me from going to the Ball, brief creature of meat and bone."_ signed Asinath _"for I shall look darling beyond mortal comprehension with a bow tie around the bulk of my mass, and all shall behold me and despair."_  
There was a short pause while Emily ran translation algorithms.  
"According to my research," replied Entraptra, "more is more; hoopskirts or it didn't happen."  
_"Cast aside restraint and rejoice in the endless seas of taffeta and satin? That which is called a "ballgown" can never contain me, for it assumes a torso to go within the décolletage and a head to go above it. "_  
"Nonsense," said Scorpia solidly.  
"That's just conventional talk, like when I was afraid to go because the other princesses won't like it. You can't live in fear of what other people think. Catra taught me that. She's the best friend." She smiled at the memory.  
_"Very well. I shall fear not the endless maddening whisperings of princesses."_  
"Right! Perfect!" said Entraptra, radiating a sort of manic joy at the thought of a new project, "I think we can pull in and lengthen the bodice to emphasise the curious rubbery strength of your trunk and let your sense-organs peek over the ruffles."  
She grabbed paper from one of the tables with her hair-tendrils and pulled a pen out of her pocket and started sketching. Maybe only Asinath's extreme divergence from human physiology could turn _haute couture_ into an engineering problem, but now that it was one, Entraptra was hooked.  
"Then the bottomless, contra-rotating jaws of your maw go between the puff sleeves. You'll look utterly ravening."  
Asinath blinked several eyes.  
"Now," said Entraptra, grinning like someone who hasn't applied possibly-toxic paint to the dermal layers of a new species for weeks. "How do you feel about makeup?"  
_"I have chromatophores,"_ signed Asinath, shading her tentacle-tips to purple, with perhaps a slight smugness. _"I'll try formal body glitter though. Gold flakes on the green."_  
"What about mascara on these cilia? They could look thick and dark and mysterious?"  
They tried, but it threw off Asinath's sense of air currents and pressure, making her stumble, so she spent a couple of minutes washing them off.  
"What about a cousarge?" asked Scorpia , "A fern frond would echo..." she trailed off, and gestured weakly.  
"I'm sorry, I don't actually know what this organ is, or if it's appropriate to point at."  
_"Rami. External gills. And I trust you."_  
The others repeated back the gesture for "Rami", Entraptra with her hair while her hands stayed busy expanding the concept-sketch into a parts list for modifying an existing gown into something that Asinath could wear and look good in. 

__

_\-----------------------_

_"Hail pretender to the Boreal realms."_ signed Asinath to Frosta.  
"Nope!" exclaimed Catra cheerfully, tucking one manipulator- tentacle into the crook of her arm and marching away. "Horde rules-you gotta be more polite than that or I make you sit in the corner."  
_"The polity too, knows not what lies in frozen slumber beneath the icy wastes. Revel in your blessèd ignorance."_ signed Asinath, the stately, precise motions of signing in humorous contrast to the frantic rolling gait of her locomotion, tentacle tips peeking out from under her voluminous skirts. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chromatophores- in Asinath's case, colour-changing organs in the skin.
> 
> Scampering cephalopods:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23qzi88k3aM  
> (this is pretty much Asinath's lower half in the last scene)


	4. Octavia

"do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti", sang Octavia, concentrating furiously on opening her throat. The two main problems with being a minion in the Evil Horde was how hard it was to find time to practice solfège and the poor provision of vocal coaches. She also had to be careful not to get promoted: it was impossible to sergeant properly without developing vocal cord nodules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone in the Horde knows about her hobby. It's how she got her nickname :)


	5. Asinath and Perfuma

Asinath and Perfuma had bonded over many things. Engulfing your foes beneath a mass of strong ropy appendages. Gleeful battle-madness. Teasing Adora. A belief in the will of the universe, although Perfuma called her All-Mother, and Asinath called him a bubbling mass of protoplasmic flesh masked by a congeries of iridescent globes.  
Despite this, Asinath was adamant on the subject of flower-crowns.   
"I'm too viscid. The petals will stick and be gross." She gestured. Adora translated.   
"Try body-glitter."


End file.
